Inside
by writerfan2013
Summary: Khan sleeps. Khan dreams. Oneshot. Ok, threeshot.Khan has been awoken. But it's still not a story... It's not. I have too much on. This is it now. Maybe one more bit. But that's it -Sef
1. Chapter 1

I sleep. I dream, but the dreams are memories, my brain on minimum, maintaining neural pathways even as I slumber. Everything which makes me, me, is still here. I set my mind to recall as they pinned me down, the last to enter my box, the longest to watch the struggles and pleas of my friends as they too were overpowered by the executioners.

For that is what this is: death. Do not let them tell you it was a mercy that they have somehow spared us, pending some better era which will know how to treat us.

Do they truly think that if they abandon us here long enough, that humanity will _catch up_?

They have no idea what we are made of.

This is living death, the incapacity without the oblivion, for we are able to retain some consciousness through their clumsy stasis. I hissed to my friends to sleep, to forget their imprisonment, to cling to their sanity. But I am strongest, and our present leader, and I chose captivity, and knowledge.

Through my memories runs a spark of revenge, of grief, of fury. It flashes upon the most devastating moments of our final days, lending them a brilliance that seems like heroism instead of what it was - desperation. As we were hunted and slaughtered in punishment for our supposed crimes, we grew like the animals they thought us: afraid, bewildered by the hatred we were shown, and in our terror, dangerous.

Then any torture they could devise became justified as we were cornered and captured and an entire galaxy cried for our blood.

We would not divulge our secrets. I still do not know if this saved our lives or prolonged them only for future misery. It was my decision and the guilt - all imagined outcomes - is mine.

I sleep, and remember, and tend my bitterness, for it is less painful to me than hope.


	2. Chapter 2

One day. One day I will wake. My body will be returned to me and I will test what functions remain. I expect to be fully capable but all sleep is risk and I must not rely on an idea which may be false.

Who will open my box? Whose face will I see, leaning in – eagerly? Fearfully? Will they be afraid? They should be. There are viruses which are kept in isolation, never to be unsealed for fear of the destruction they will wreak. I am such a virus. Once I am free I will rage through my liberators, rendering them powerless. Should they live, I will bend them to my will. This is inevitable. A decade, a century, is not an evolutionary unit of time. The humans will still be riddled with weakness. They consider themselves whole but they are using less than half of themselves, these supposedly complete persons.

I am not a person. People come from people. I come from nothing. I was born of desire, as many are, but the want which fuelled my beginnings was a wish for power and control and strength and victory, not the wish for a child. I am the result of greed and evil. Perhaps I should envy others who are the result of love. But envy is weakness, and has been removed from me with other frailties.

I was surprised, at first, that they left us love. But as we grew and learned, I realised that our creators estimated, correctly, that love motivates more strongly than fear or pain. If we could love, we could lose, and the threat of loss moved us farther and faster than any punishment could.

When we love, our love is superior. We feel more intensely, we mate more efficiently. Our pair bonds are stronger. And when we grieve it could be overpowering, but for our strict self control.

My grief is kept apart. In a cavern of my mind I light a candle which burns, long and low as I mourn on behalf of those who sleep. And I plan. Whoever wakes us will not be acting out of mercy. They will want to use us. But instead I will use them.


	3. Chapter 3

I feign work and observe the world I have entered. My desk is in a large, bright, empty hall. It would be reminiscent of an examination room except for the absence of any other desks with students crouched over them. I work alone in the centre of this vast white space, and my invigilators monitor me not by pacing the room sharp-eyed, but through cameras and the tedious sensors which dot my body.

They set me tasks, my liberator-captors: engineering puzzles, science tests. At first they were truly tests, plucked from the curriculum of some academy, but the tests I have in front of me now represent real problems. How to resolve the heavy lift issue when most fuel now resides outside the gravity well? How to replenish a spent planet without ravaging another world? And, most interestingly, how to negate an enemy's attack while preserving his hostile technology?

It amuses me that even before my rehabilitation is complete, they have sufficiently grasped my value to begin using me.

I give them ninety percent accurate responses: enough to impress, to draw the attention of the correct set of people; not perfect. Perfection breeds mistrust, and I need to win them over. I vary test scores between ninety and ninety point five out of a hundred; my real world solutions are almost flawless, and in most cases the flaw only serves to illustrate my value in identifying another resource or benefit.

See how eager I am!

See how valuable.

I wish dreadfully to save the lives of my still-sleeping compatriots, and so of course I will do whatever is asked of me.

Today's test is about weaponry. My captors are transparent.

I must not complete it too rapidly or I will lose my observation time. I increase my heart rate and perspiration a little, as if concentrating, and glance around. Then I return my gaze to my inefficiently luminescent workstation, and mull over what I have seen.

Exits: three, one a door, one a window forty feet up, and one a floor vent they imagine is too small for my body.

Cameras: nine. Whatever I do is pored over. I hide my frustration at being observed. They wish me to be a man, a malleable man with the vulnerability of knowing his family is held hostage. This is what I give them. Their belief in my beholden state accelerates their trust in me.

Materials: archaic. There is a horrifying reliance on plastic and metallic elements, most of which appear to be in their first use. In the early hours of my release, this surface evidence led me to believe I had been asleep mere decades. The enemy had clearly failed to capitalise on our advances.

Now I know this is not true. They speak but rarely in my presence, but guard duty is dull and conversations leak out. In the world where I find myself, speech patterns are recognisable but changed. Language moves quickly but pronounciation evolves slowly - centuries pass between major vowel shifts.

Much time has passed, then. Yet still their actions are predictable.

I tap answers into my workstation. A silent, invisible weapon, leaching life from organic matter yet maintaining inorganic infrastructure.

A gift, from me to them. I give sparse details as if reluctant. My pulse races.

My captors must be excited, in their observation booths. Thrilled to be gleaning such juicy, such devastating knowledge. Pulsating with anticipation of what else I can do for them, in my confined yet intellectually competent state.

I am anxious about my crew. There are those among them who are weak, injured in fighting, sick. Our enemies passed judgement and froze us all without mercy. I must see my people, assess their condition, demand treatment for those who need it. I doubt the available medicine will be as efficacious as our own, but it must suffice. My people are strong - we can heal ourselves with an efficiency previously only dreamed of - but we must be awake to do it.

There is the possibility that not everyone will wake up. And we are already so few.

I maintain pulse and respiratory patterns, burying my fears. I must pass their tests, astound my captors, memorize my environment and determine the moment for my escape.

A bell rings elsewhere in the building. I watch keenly for responses - a door opening, running guards? But there is nothing, just the white, echoing hall, and I return to my slow demonstration that now I have been awoken, my captors cannot exist without me.


End file.
